Do affirmations work psychology

Do Affirmations Work? Yes, but There’s a Catch

Affirmations are a self-help strategy used to promote self-confidence and belief in your own abilities.

You’ve probably affirmed yourself without even realizing it by telling yourself things like:

“All I can do is my best.”
“I’ve got what it takes.”
“I believe in my ability to succeed.”

These simple statements help shift your focus away from perceived failures or inadequacies and direct your focus toward your strengths — those you already have and those you want to develop.

But do they actually work? Kind of.

Affirmations generally work as a tool for shifting your mindset and achieving your goals, but they’re not a magic bullet for instant success or healing.

Neuroplasticity, or your brain’s ability to change and adapt to different circumstances throughout your life, offers a clue to help understand not only what makes affirmations work, but how to make them more effective.

Your brain sometimes gets a little mixed up on the difference between reality and imagination, which can be surprisingly useful.

Creating a mental image of yourself doing something — like acing a nerve-wracking interview or conquering your fear of heights by bungee jumping — activates many of the same brain areas that actually experiencing these situations would.

Regular repetition of affirming statements about yourself can encourage your brain to take these positive affirmations as fact. When you truly believe you can do something, your actions often follow.

For example, you might replace a negative or anxious thought, like:

“I’m so terrible at interviews. I’m probably not even as qualified as the other candidates. There’s no way they’ll hire me, I should just leave.”

With a positive affirmation:

“I have all the necessary skills and experience, and I’m the perfect candidate for this job.”

Using affirmations may help you feel more relaxed before your interview, and knowing you’re fully prepared can also help you avoid self-sabotaging thoughts or behaviors potentially interfering with your success.

Remember, action is key

Repeating an affirmation can help boost your motivation and confidence, but you still have to take some action yourself. Try thinking of affirmations as a step toward change, not the change itself.

Consider that nosy co-worker who always asks questions about your personal life. You don’t want to say anything to offend, but you also have no intention of answering their questions.

An affirmation like “I can remain calm even when I feel annoyed” might guide you to a habit of deep breathing or grounding exercises when you start to feel your blood boil.

These tactics, combined with your affirmations, help you get through the stressful moment until you can politely make an escape.

The affirmation didn’t make the change, you did. But it did offer a starting point.

Affirmations are just one self-help tool. Like other strategies, they can offer some measure of relief, but their benefits usually depend on how you use them.

Creating your own can help ensure you’re choosing affirmations that will help you most. Try the tips below to start developing and using affirmations more effectively.

Set them in the present

While affirmations can seem similar to goals, they don’t work in quite the same way.

Remember neuroplasticity? You’re using affirmations to help change long-standing patterns and beliefs. A good way to bring this change about is to act as if you’ve already succeeded.

A goal remains something you have to work toward. An affirmation, on the other hand, strengthens your confidence by reminding you of what you can do right now.

Avoid stock affirmations

You can find affirmations pretty much everywhere: T-shirts, inspirational images on social media, internet articles, and self-help blogs, to name a few places.

It’s perfectly fine to use an affirmation you read somewhere that really stuck with you, but creating an affirmation specifically tailored to your goals may work best.

Affirmations can be about anything, so why not get creative and consider ways to make yours as specific as possible?

Many people find it helps to link affirmations to core values, such as kindness, honesty, or dedication. This can help you remain focused on the broader picture of what really matters to you.

Example

Say you’ve felt a little down lately because your career hasn’t proven as financially rewarding as you imagined. To counter these negative feelings, you want to remind yourself of the things you do appreciate.

You might construct an affirmation along the lines of:

“I have wonderful co-workers and a loving family. My work satisfies me, and I know I’m making a difference.”

This statement reminds you of the things a large paycheck alone can’t provide.

Keep it real

Affirmations tend to have the most benefit when they center on specific traits or realistic, achievable changes you’d like to make to those traits.

Change is always possible, but some changes happen more easily than others. Affirmations alone can’t produce change in every situation, and if your affirmation focuses on a statement you don’t accept as true, it may have little effect.

Example

Perhaps you don’t think much of your body shape. An affirmation about desired changes might increase your motivation to work on getting fit or bulking up.

But exercise, however beneficial, can’t change every aspect of your body.

A more effective affirmation might involve a more neutral statement, such as:

“I appreciate what my body does for me each day, and I keep myself in good health with regular activity and nutritious foods.”

Similarly, affirming your favorite traits (physical or otherwise) can help you see yourself in a new light.

Compassion, quick wit, strength, speed: Everyone has unique talents. Focusing on yours can help prevent frustration and self-criticism when affirmations don’t manifest into improbable outcomes.

Ultra-positive affirmations along the lines of “I am beautiful” and “I love myself each and every day” often fail because most people don’t truly believe those things.

More neutral or specific statements, such as “I love my smile and kind face” or “I treat myself with kindness every day,” generally prove more helpful.

Practice affirming yourself every day

To get the most benefit from affirmations, you’ll want to start a regular practice and make it a habit:

Start with 3 to 5 minutes at least twice a day. Try saying affirmations upon waking up and getting into bed, for example.
Repeat each affirmation about 10 times. Listen to yourself saying it, focusing on the words as they leave your mouth. As you say them, believe them to be true.
Ask a trusted loved one to help. Listening to someone else repeat your affirmations may help reinforce your belief in them.
Make your routine consistent. Try not to skip any days. If you meditate, affirmations can be a great addition to your daily practice.
Be patient. It may take some time before you notice any changes, so stick with your practice!

Another benefit of a daily routine? Practicing affirmations can activate the reward system in your brain, which can have an impact on the way you experience both emotional and physical pain.

Knowing you have the ability to manage stress and other life difficulties can help boost confidence and self-empowerment, further promoting faith in yourself.

The truth is, affirmations don’t work for everyone. And contrary to what some people suggest, positive thinking isn’t all-powerful.

Negative ideas about the self can certainly hold you back, but sometimes these ideas come from something that dwells a little deeper within.

Uncovering past experiences that are fueling deeply etched patterns of negative thinking is best done with help from a therapist.

Also keep in mind that low self-esteem and other negative thought patterns often relate to mental health concerns, including depression and anxiety.

A therapist can help you begin identifying potential causes of negative or unwanted thoughts and explore helpful coping strategies, which might include affirmations alongside other tools.

A daily affirmation practice can mark a solid step on the journey toward self-improvement — for some people.

If affirmations leave you in a worse mood, don’t take this as a sign of failure or resign yourself to unhappiness. It could simply mean your journey toward change uses a slightly different route. A therapist can offer guidance and help you plot a better course.

Crystal Raypole has previously worked as a writer and editor for GoodTherapy. Her fields of interest include Asian languages and literature, Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues.

Affirmations: The Why, What, How, and What If?

Why Use Affirmations?

People use affirmations for a variety of purposes. Generally speaking, affirmations are used to reprogram the subconscious mind, to encourage us to believe certain things about ourselves or about the world and our place within it. They are also used to help us create the reality we want—often in terms of making (or attracting) wealth, love, beauty, and happiness.

According to Walter E. Jacobson, M.D., there is value in affirmations of this nature, because our subconscious mind plays a major role in the actualization of our lives and the manifestation of our desires. What we believe about ourselves at a subconscious level, he says, can have a significant impact on the outcome of events.

At the simplest level, when we feel good about ourselves and have a positive attitude, our lives tend to run smoothly. Proponents of the “law of attraction” often refer to this as raising our vibration such that when our vibration is positive, positive things—such as financial abundance, love, and renewed health—are magnetically drawn to us.

On the other hand, when we feel bad about ourselves and have a negative attitude, we tend to engage in self-defeating behaviors which may cause negative outcomes, like financial mishap, interpersonal drama, or acute or chronic illness.

And, on a much more pragmatic level, recent scholarship from a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon suggests that self-affirmations actually buffer stress and improved problem-solving performance in underperforming and chronically stressed individuals.

What, Exactly, Are Affirmations?

Affirmations are simply statements that are designed to create self-change in the individual using them. They can serve as inspiration, as well as simple reminders. They also can serve to focus attention on goals throughout the day, which, in and of itself, has the potential to promote positive and sustained self-change.

The formula for writing effective affirmations is actually quite simple.

1. Effective Affirmations Are Written in First Person.

Begin your affirmations with the “I” or “I am....” These types of statements turn affirmations into statements of identity. Identity statements are powerful motivators for self-change. Examples of I statements would be, “I am secure and confident speaking in public,” “I enjoy eating healthy food,” “I love to exercise,” and “I am a loving and compassionate person.”

2. Affirmations Are Written in the Positive (as Opposed to the Negative).

Always state your affirmations in the positive. For example, instead of saying, “I no longer enjoy the taste of cigarettes,” you might say, “I am completely free from cigarettes,” or “I am a healthy person and I love the way my body feels when I make healthy choices.”

3. Affirmations Have an Emotional Charge.

Imbue your affirmations with feeling. Using emotional words in affirmations is important, because of the deep association we have between emotion words and somatic experiences. So instead of saying, “I spend time with my aging parents,” try saying, “I feel such love and gratitude spending time with my mother and father.” Or instead of “I only eat healthy food,” which sounds suspiciously chore-like, try, “I feel vibrant and alive when I make healthy choices for me.”

4. Affirmations Are Written in the Present State.

Write your affirmations as if they are already happening. This means affirming, “I am happy and confident,” instead of “Two months from now, I will be happy and confident.” Or, “I am sexy and attractive,” as opposed to, “When I lose these last ten pounds, I will be sexy and attractive. ”

This is the step that causes most people to falter, because in some cases they feel silly writing or saying something that they actually don’t yet believe—at least at a conscious level—is true. But remember, the purpose behind affirmations is to rewrite your subconscious mind.

Many holistic traditions suggest that if you act as if something is true, if you experience the feelings associated with the outcome that you want, the more likely it is for the outcome to materialize. That is, if you believe that you are attractive and sexy, you will automatically engage in the behaviors associated with that (heightened self-care), which will help you to attain your goals.

Additional tips for writing affirmations that work:

A review of sources on writing effective affirmations also cautions against getting caught up in the how. Because if you believe that you are a certain way, you will—subconsciously—figure out a way to make it work.

They also point out that affirming your current successes (that is, the things that you consciously know to be true already) in addition to affirming those things you want to create may undercut any dissonance you have for making future-paced statements.

Further, many sources stress the importance of writing your own affirmations—ones that speak to your deepest desires and use specific words or phrases that resonate with you personally.

They also suggest that you update your affirmations regularly, in order to preserve their emotional potency.

If you'd like to try your hand at writing your own, personal affirmations, there is an app called Affirmable that lets you easily create your own affirmations and work with them every day.

How Do You Use Affirmations?

Once you’ve come up with a set of affirmations, you must use them. In order to be effective, affirmations must be used daily—at a minimum.

Some recommendations suggest that you do affirmations first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Others recommend putting your affirmations on note cards and leaving them in plain sight, such as on your bathroom mirror, the steering wheel on your car, your computer monitor, or in your purse or wallet.

Different people also have different modes of using affirmations.

Some suggest that writing affirmations down on a daily basis is useful, because the act of writing something out is another mechanism through which the affirmation becomes part of the unconscious mind.

Others simply read or repeat affirmations from a list, a stack of cards, or most recently, from smartphone apps. Indeed, there are a number of phone apps for purchase that come pre-stocked with affirmations related to health, wealth, and relationships.

However, if you want to write your own affirmations, you might want to try Affirmable, which allows you to write, edit, and review your own affirmations. Using apps may also be better than pen and paper methods because you’ll always have them with you and you can program your phone to remind you to do them once a day or several times a day.

What If? Do Affirmations Really Work?

Self-affirmations were first popularized in the 1920s and have since been trumpeted by coaches and self-help gurus around the world. But do they work?

References to Naploean Hill's now classic, Think and Grow Rich, aside, recent evidence suggests that, yes, affirmations do work. As mentioned above, a recent study from Carnegie Mellon reveals that self-affirmations can protect against the damaging effects of stress on problem-solving performance and counteract ego-depletion. Self-affirmations also enhance our task-related performances and make us more receptive to our mistakes. Additionally, self-affirmations have also been shown to assist regular users in rewriting self-fulfilling prophecies pertaining to social rejection.

I began this blog post citing the work of psychiatrist and author Walter Jacobsen, M.D. It seems suitable, given that this is a blog on relationships, to end with Dr. Jacobson as well. With regards to using self-affirmations in relationships he writes: “If we tend to be self-centered, selfish, and withholding towards others, our relationships are likely to be unsatisfying and unsustainable, we might affirm and remind ourselves throughout the day to be generous of spirit, to be of service to others, and to share our blessings the best we can. ”

Affirmations in psychology - Psychologist Yuri Efimov

One of the most popular psychological practices in the world today is the technique of positive affirmations . The famous American psychologist Louise Hay attracted wide public attention to this practice.

Contents of the article:

What are affirmations?
Affirmation Rules
Affirmation Examples
When do affirmations not work?

This legendary woman has written more than 30 books on psychology, most of which are based on the phenomenon of positive attitudes.

What are affirmations?

An affirmation is a short, clear phrase, which, when repeated many times, is fixed in the subconscious of a person as a positive attitude. In fact, the mechanism of influence of such attitudes on the brain is based on the effect of self-hypnosis. Such auto-training has a positive effect on the psycho-emotional sphere of a person and contributes to positive changes in life.

People who use the affirmation technique can develop self-confidence, increase motivation, tune in to a positive result, change their attitude to the events taking place around them. The practice of self-hypnosis allows a person to feel happy, increase self-esteem and achieve success through activity and self-confidence.

Rules for making affirmations

Affirmations work with multiple repetitions. For this psychological technique to be effective, a person must take attitudes seriously, believe in their effectiveness. Experts call the following rules for composing positive affirmations:

A positive attitude should be formulated briefly and clearly, without the use of complex words, terms and phrases;
When compiling affirmations, the use of negative wording and statements is not allowed. You can not use the particle "not", because it is subconsciously perceived as a negation;
A positive attitude must have an emotional force, affect a person, causing strong positive associations in him;
The setting must be formulated in the present tense. It is not allowed to formulate thoughts in the format “I will”, “I will become”, etc.;
The phrase must reflect the true motives (goals) of the individual. To understand these motives, you should answer yourself the question “What do I want to achieve?”;
To strengthen your own belief in affirmations, you should record every, even a minor victory (success, positive change).

Examples of affirmations

A positive attitude should correspond to the purpose of the individual. Let's look at examples of effective affirmations:

Affirmations for success - "I deserve to be successful", "I am a respected and influential person", "I achieve all the goals that I dreamed of."
Relationship Building Affirmations – “I am worthy of love”, “I allow ideal relationships into my life”, “I feel loved”.
Affirmations to increase self-esteem - "I am beautiful in body and soul", "I radiate strength and energy", "I am happy to be myself. "
Happiness affirmations - “I attract everything I want”, “I live in peace and tranquility”, “I am open and ready to accept happiness”.
Health Affirmations - "my body is healthy and energetic", "my vitality is increasing every day", "I am stress free".

When do affirmations fail?

Positive attitudes do not work if a person does not believe in their power. The monotonous repetition of composed phrases, without the involvement of the individual, is not effective. Doubts and negative thoughts are incompatible with self-hypnosis techniques. Turning to a psychologist, a person can find suitable affirmations, master the technique of their pronunciation, and increase the effectiveness of the technique.

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Affirmations: what is it, how to use it correctly, examples

. Will words in front of a mirror help you become more confident, more beautiful and healthier

Updated August 24, 2022, 16:32

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What are affirmations

Affirmations are positive statements in the form of short phrases. In popular psychology, they are used to create a mood, to change the attitude towards one's own negative attitude. [1]

In the Big Psychological Dictionary, affirmations are mentioned only as part of the rebirthing methodology. The creators of psychotechnology, Orr and Ray, believed that through breathing exercises and inner work with positive affirmations, patients "live through the various traumatic moments of biological birth" in order to gain relaxation, peace, and a feeling of love. [2]

Affirmations can be considered one of the types of self-hypnosis. It is recommended to write your own positive phrase in the first person, without negation (in Russian it is recommended to omit the “not” particle). [3]

Maria Buleeva, clinical psychologist, psychotherapist of the online psychotherapy service Zigmund.Online

“In recent years, affirmations have become very common. You can find different types of affirmations on the Internet for all occasions. The call for their use is based on the belief that by inspiring themselves with a certain attitude, people can form a new reality around them. However, in scientific psychology, affirmations are not recognized as an effective method for qualitative transformations in life.

Sergey Savinov, psychologist, founder of the psychological project “Sphere”

“Affirmations as a technique were born against the backdrop of a search for tools to work with the human psyche due to lack of sufficient knowledge in this area. It seemed to people that if they found in themselves an attitude through which they perceive the world (or themselves), and began to repeat the opposite in front of the mirror, then life should change. Affirmations affect everyone differently. Some are more suggestible, some less. Depends on personal characteristics.

How affirmations appeared

Wikipedia

Emile Coué

The French psychologist Emile Coué is called the "Father" of affirmations. At the end of the 19th century, he worked as an apothecary and wrote short positive notes for each drug. Coué remarked that if one praised the effectiveness of a drug, it would work better. This phenomenon is now known as the placebo effect.

Later, Émile Coué, together with his wife, founded the Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology and developed the theory of the so-called "optimistic self-hypnosis". According to the placebo effect researcher and author David Hamilton, Émile Coué laid the foundation for the modern concept of positive beliefs. [4]

The works of the French psychologist Coué influenced many American authors of the 20th century. But it was not until the 1980s, thanks to Louise Hay, that the term "affirmation" came out of the psychological community and metaphysical writers. She has been called one of the best-selling authors in history and "the woman who changed America's spiritual landscape." [5]

Louise was born in 1926 to a dysfunctional family in Los Angeles. At the age of five, she was raped by a neighbor, at ten she left school, and at 16 she gave up her own newborn child for adoption. At 19In the 1950s, Louise moved to New York, became a model and married an English millionaire. When her husband left Hay after 14 years of marriage, the woman found solace in one of the religious communities. There, she said, she heard the phrase "If you are willing to change your mindset, you can change your life."

Hay was so taken with this idea that she began reading treatises on positive thinking by the metaphysical writers Florence Skavel Shinn and Ernest Holmes. Then she began to use verbal affirmations in her work with people. At 1984th Louise Hay wrote the book "Heal Your Life".

The author argued that the main thing is a thought that can always be changed, and changes in life will occur if you give up the past. According to Louise, the feeling of resentment and anger "devours the body", can provoke cancer; discussion and criticism cause arthritis; guilt creates pain; fear and tension contribute to baldness. The writer suggested eradicating psychosomatic manifestations with the help of daily affirmations. These are just a few of them:

I don't fix problems. I correct my thinking. Then the problems solve themselves;
I easily adjust my thinking before trying to solve any problem;
I am in the process of positive change;
when I forgive myself, it becomes easier to forgive others;
I listen lovingly to my body's messages;
I am ready to change. [6]

The epidemic of HIV and AIDS in the last decades of the last century made Hay a heroine for those who tried to recover when effective therapy did not yet exist. The woman never claimed that affirmations would get rid of AIDS, but held to the axiom that a sexually transmitted disease is almost always sexual guilt, which can arise from hatred of oneself or one's appearance.

Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Louise Hay, 2009

Thanks to affirmations, the Hey Empire has grown into its own publishing house Hay House, an Internet radio station, a dozen websites, tutorials, video tutorials and seminars. [7] Louise's popularity was fueled by her appearances on TV with the most famous presenters in the United States: for example, she repeatedly guested on The Oprah Winfrey Show. [8] [9] Louise Hay died at age 90 in 2017, leaving behind followers of positive thinking and affirmations.

Why do we need affirmations

The popularity of affirmations has contributed to the emergence of research on this topic. In 2005, researchers at the University of Kentucky divided 136 women into two groups as part of an experiment. One of them participated in a six-hour cognitive-behavioral group intervention to identify and reduce negative thinking. This group experienced a 90,003 reduction in depressive symptoms and negative thinking 90,004 and the effect persisted for a year. The authors of the study concluded that negative thinking can be reduced, including with the help of affirmations. [10]

A 2013 study co-authored by scientists from Carnegie Mellon University, UCLA and others states that affirmations can alleviate the effects of chronic stress . [11]

In 2019, scientists from the University of Groningen concluded that affirmations can restore self-esteem and partially improve cognitive abilities . [12]

A study by scientists Clayton Kreacher, David Dunning and David Armor showed that affirmations can be effective in protecting against negative attitudes , but only if affirmations are applied until the subject does not believe in the negative attitude. [13] Simply put, if you are being told that you are stupid, the belief in your good mental abilities can soften the reaction to unpleasant statements.

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Does this prove that affirmations are the key to a happy, peaceful, and successful life? Not so simple. All the above experiments were carried out under the supervision of professional psychologists and scientists with doctoral degrees. Affirmations were used only as one of the methods for positive influence. And working with the subjects was more difficult than just pronouncing a stereotyped positive attitude from the Internet.

Can Affirmations Harm

Psychologists interviewed by RBC Life believe that affirmations, if used incorrectly, can have a bad effect on the psyche.

Maria Buleeva

“If a person’s true belief is “I am not worthy of big money,” and he repeats money spectrum affirmations from the Internet, for example, “I am worthy of big money, my income is constantly increasing,” this will only cause internal tension.”

One of the dangers is if the affirmation comes into conflict with reality. For example, a person is trying to lose weight and uses the affirmation “I lose weight easily”, but at the same time does not see confirmation in the mirror. Permanent reading of the same type of phrase can form a new unit in the speech picture of the world. It is superimposed on an existing one and comes into conflict with it, says psychologist Sergei Savinov. In this case, a person finds himself between two fires of intrapersonal conflict, which can lead to a mental disorder.

Sergey Savinov

“The client read the affirmations “I'm fine” for a long time, and then went to see a psychiatrist with a suspicion of bipolar personality disorder. The symptoms were as follows: one day - everything is fine, the next - I want to howl like a wolf. They started prescribing pills, the client refused. She then came to our reception. After counseling, it turned out that the phrase "I'm fine" came into conflict with the deep idea "There is something wrong with me." This is where the shaking started. Corrected. Lives well now."

According to Sergey Savinov, if you look at the results of clients of those professionals who vehemently promote affirmations, you will see people without results, but with a big smile on their faces and a certain detachment from reality.

Is it possible to use affirmations

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Maria Buleeva believes that affirmations can only be useful if they are made individually and do not conflict with a person's real beliefs. The most correct and useful affirmations, in her opinion, will consist of your personal experience and true desires.

Maria Buleeva:

“Suppose you can find out that what you really want is not to be stunningly beautiful, but to be loved or recognized. Such a case was with my client, who for more than six months “meditated” on the affirmation “I am the most beautiful, I really like my reflection in the mirror, every day I become more beautiful and more beautiful,” but she could not accept her appearance.

In the course of therapy, she realized that she wanted to feel accepted by other people, and for this she had to change her lifestyle, go out more often, get to know each other. She managed to write a personal affirmation that really began to help her, it sounded something like this: “I step over the fear of communicating with other people and embark on the path of getting new positive experiences in life.

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